Golf balls are often lost when people play golf. The loss of the ball slows down the game as players search for a lost ball, and lost balls make the game more expensive to play because of the cost of new balls. Furthermore, according to the rules of the U.S. Golf Association, a player is penalized for strokes in a round or game of golf if his/her golf ball is lost.
There have been attempts in the past to make findable golf balls in order to avoid some of the problems caused by lost balls. One such attempt is described in German Patent No. G 87 09 505.3 (Helmut Mayer, 1988). In this German patent, a two-piece golf ball is fitted with foil reflectors which are glued to the outer layer of the core. A shell surrounds the foil reflectors and the core. Each of the reflectors consists of a two-part foil antenna with a diode connected on the inner ends. The diode causes a reflected signal to be double the frequency of a received signal. A 5-watt transmitter, which is used to beam a signal toward the reflectors, is used to find the ball. The ball is found when a reflected signal is generated by the foil antenna and diode and reflected back toward a receiver. It has been discovered that this all foil antenna does not provide a durable antenna and that the ball will not be findable (e.g. findable for a distance of greater than 20 feet) after only a few hits on the ball.
Another attempt in the art to make a findable golf ball is described in PCT Patent Application No. WO 0102060 A1, which describes a golf ball for use in a driving range. This golf ball includes an active radiofrequency identification device (RFID) which identifies a particular ball. The RFID includes an active (e.g. contains transistors) ASIC chip which is energized from a received radio signal. The RFID device is mounted in the sealed capsule which is placed within the core of the ball. The RFID device is designed to be used only at short range (e.g. less than about 10 feet). The use of a sealed capsule to hold the RFID within the ball increases the expense of making this ball and is believed to degrade the performance of the ball.
Other examples of attempts in the prior art to make findable golf balls include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,626,531; 5,423,549; 5,662,534; and 5,820,484.